Topic: Question of the Day: Did Mush just buy a Lemon?

[Musashi NCC-BR549]

I just ordered a laptop.


Inspiron 9300,Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz/533MHz FSB)  

17 inch UltraSharp Wide ScreenXGA+ Display for Inspiron 9300
 
1GB, DDR2, 533MHz 2 Dimm, for Inspiron 9300
  
256MB NVIDIA Go 6800 Ultra
  
60GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 9300
 
Microsoft Windows XP Home Service Pack 2, English, for Inspiron
 
Dell Media Experience,v2.1
 
Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem
 
24X CD-RW/DVD Combo

CyberLink PowerDVD v5.3.1012, Decoding Sofware for DVD Drives, for Inspiron Systems  

Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 Internal Wireless (802.11 b/g,54Mbps)
 

+ a few other whistles and bells

-------------------------

I was after a solid laptop for under 2 Grand that had this in it:  http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=648&cid=10

Comments, please.   Okay, where did I screw up?

[Pestalence_XC]

Well... seems like an OK system.. the CPU is quite slow for having a GeForce go 6800 ultra and the FSB is quite slow at 533 Mhz.. the FSB should be around 800 MHZ for proper through put for the graphics card and CPU to Ram...

You CPU should be at least a P IV 2.8 Ghz with HT ... and most laptops run Desktop CPU's instead of the Mobiles now (Mobiles you can cut off 1/4 the speed listed) and mobiles do not have HT tech..

But it should work just fine...

You may notice that XP Home is lacking in some areas compared to XP Pro. XPSP 2 adds a lot of Pro's capabilities, however some of the Administrator tools such as GPEDIT.MSC will not integrate into the Home version.

The DVD should be at least a 36X CD burn and 12x DVD burner...

Lose the Cyberlink DVD and get Intervideo WinDVD 6.. WinDVD 6 uses Hardware settings of your graphics card as well as helps enforce HD playback on non HD DVD's

Also for burning, get Nero 6 ultimate edition... best burning software on the market.

1 GB DDR2 is great for a laptop, however again the 533 MHZ front bus is very limiting.. it should be a minimum of 800 MHZ to take advantage of the through put.

the 60 GB HDD is good, however the standard for laptops now is 120 GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA, or the 80 GB 7200 RPM Serial.

the wireless is good, but in most cases it may not be available unless you are in places like starbucks ($9 /hr connection fee) or in a motel offering wireless... or have a home set up for Wireless networking.... otherwise you'll still be connecting by Ethernet.


I would estimate the system you posted above was about $1650...


Pretty good.. I would give it a medium-high rating.. the CPU speed and the FSB are what kills it.. resale value, because of those 2 items, will drop like a rock in water.. In about 2 months that same system will be about $1200 to $1300 maybe less... the only saving grace is the ammount of Ram you have and the Geforce go6800 ultra.

But if it serves your purposes, then it is a good buy...

[Musashi NCC-BR549]

Thanks, Brother Pestalence. 

$1950 including tax and service plan.    I should have called you, instead. ........... dammit.  I WILL find you before I buy another.

I could have ordered it with a " PentiumM 760 Processor (2GHz/533MHz FSB)" at the cost of $400 more.   I had to draw the line somewhere.  Also, from what I can tell, 533 Mhz is as good as Dell gets. 

The DVD player will be used primarily for playback and data DVD's ....LOL - from past experiences, I'm sure that this will be the first item to blow up, anyway.   I will have an opportunity to upgrade this one when that happens ....  I have a pretty good external DVD burner and Intervideo WinDVD 6 .. I think. ... I WILL look into Nero 6. 

I have 100 Gig worth of external HD space available ....  (USB/ firewire/ and the rest of the home wireless router network thingy) .... I live with a 40 gig HD on my current laptop and use externals for bulk storage.  I'll run this new one lean and clean, too.... so the 60 gig doesn't spook me..... yet.  I can up that later.

Thanks again for the input.  It calmed my nerves a little.

Hugs and kisses,

Mush the Nervous Compuslive Buyer

[Bonk]

Dell can work for some. I find them unbearable. I have lost days (weeks?) of my working life to the painfully slow Optiplex GX100 at more than one job site <bangs head>, my grandmother's brand new Dell P4 is considerably slower than my three year old PIII. Your best be may be to buy a full version of windows and replace whatever Dell did to the OEM version shipped with the machine. (though "hardware" may fail if you try to run full windows on it). Other OS's are not likely to run on the a Dell machine as many jobs normally done by hardware are offloaded to software drivers that replace the hardware functionality (allowing use of cheaper boards).

Cheaper is not always cheaper. (included printers and that kind of thing are what people fall for - printing is not a home consumer issue IMO). Pay full price now save headaches later is my motto when it comes to PCs.

Newer Dells are quite customisable though, hopefully you'll be satisfied with your purchase. You can always return it if you find a better buy.

Not trying to bring you down, hopefully your purchase will work out, I just felt obliged to comment on my Dell experiences again.

[Nemesis]

Well... seems like an OK system.. the CPU is quite slow for having a GeForce go 6800 ultra and the FSB is quite slow at 533 Mhz.. the FSB should be around 800 MHZ for proper through put for the graphics card and CPU to Ram...

You CPU should be at least a P IV 2.8 Ghz with HT ... and most laptops run Desktop CPU's instead of the Mobiles now (Mobiles you can cut off 1/4 the speed listed) and mobiles do not have HT tech..

Sorry Pestalence but I must disagree with you.  If this were a Pentium IV or a derivative I would say the same but it isn't.  Like the Athlon and Opteron the Pentium M does more work / clock cycle than the PIV.  Much more.  That chip would perform like a non hyperthreading PIV running in excess of 3 ghz.

[Pestalence_XC]

Problem being that it is non HT.. as such, it is only doing 1/2 the work that standard CPU do and at only 1.7 Ghz.. and being a Mobile system and a mobile chip.. it also has to dedicate CPU cycles to power monitoring, unlike desktop CPU's (mainily monitoring battery power, keeping HDD info cached, keeping active memory cached and so forth for the event of Standby and hybernation)... A HT would have been a better choice... a normal P IV that has the basic 16 non HT channels would have  been a better choice over the Mobile that only has 12 channels...


I tried AMD a while back.. I tried the AMD 64 XP.. I hated it, it couldn't keep up to the way I work my applications.. and I usually have 6 to 8 apps open at once for development and graphics.. the P IV works great in heavy use.. my 2.4 Ghz Mobile could only do 1/2 the work that my desktop 2.4 P IV system could do...

You keep looking at your spec sheets.. I'll keep working with them in real life.

[Pestalence_XC]

Dell can work for some. I find them unbearable. I have lost days (weeks?) of my working life to the painfully slow Optiplex GX100 at more than one job site <bangs head>, my grandmother's brand new Dell P4 is measurably slower than my three year old PIII. Your best be may be to buy a full version of windows and replace whatever Dell did to the OEM version shipped with the machine. (though "hardware" may fail if you try to run full windows on it). Other OS's are not likely to run on the a Dell machine as many jobs normally done by hardware are offloaded to software drivers that replace the hardware functionality (allowing use of cheaper boards).

Cheaper is not always cheaper. (included printers and that kind of thing are what people fall for - printing is not a home consumer issue IMO). Pay full price now save headaches later is my motto when it comes to PCs.

Newer Dells are quite customisable though, hopefully you'll be satisfied with your purchase. You can always return it if you find a better buy.

Not trying to bring you down, hopefully your purchase will work out, I just felt obliged to comment on my Dell experiences again.

Actually Bonk.. I just got a Dell Dimension Dual P IV 2.8 Ghz HT system with 1 gig DDR2 with a FBS of 833 Mhz..

the motherboard does not have much expansion room, however the system is quite capable of performing if you unload the factory software and get the drivers from the component manufacturers instead of getting them from Dell...

As for durability, I just have to be careful with the DVD's on board as they have the cheap plastic trey base..

but it is performing above specified benchmarks.. that in itself is impressive for a Dell..